


Reckon a Thousand Acres

by Quinntessentially



Category: Blazing Saddles (1974)
Genre: M/M, Partners to Lovers, Post-Canon, Worldview, partners to... partners, talking about emotions for people who don't talk about emotions, touches of meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:21:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27407983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quinntessentially/pseuds/Quinntessentially
Summary: “You ever think about going home?” Bart asks one night, as they’re huddled together by the campfire. They never tell you about how cold it gets in the middle of nowhere, which is a real oversight if you ask Jim. Movie sets, prairies, they’re all the same if you know few enough people: lonely.“I’d much rather think about going somewhere else,” Jim says.
Relationships: Sheriff Bart/Jim "The Waco Kid"
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	Reckon a Thousand Acres

**Author's Note:**

> title stolen cruelly from walt whitman and then i bashed it around a bit for good measure. anyway, why am i writing fanfiction of this? because sometimes (elections 2020) you need an escape from the present (elections 2020). anyway enjoy

“You ever think about going home?” Bart asks one night, as they’re huddled together by the campfire. They never tell you about how cold it gets in the middle of nowhere, which is a real oversight if you ask Jim. Movie sets, prairies, they’re all the same if you know few enough people.

“I’d much rather think about going somewhere else,” Jim says. “I hear Colorado’s nice.” There’s an undercurrent to his voice, something bitter that he can’t control, and he knows Bart’s going to pick up on it.

“I hear Colorado’s full of tuberculosis,” says Bart, blithe. His eyes are keen. “Or it will be soon. Read it in a history book.”

It’s times like these that make Jim grateful that Bart’s willing to talk about the rest of the world just the way he sees it. Jim knows he’s never quite looked at people the way he’s supposed to, always had a penchant for seeking out the main character. Main character always has a penchant for seeking out him. And Jim had the bad sense to be born in the nineteenth century, so the main character’s almost always a leading man ready to punch his lights out for looking at him soulfully. Bart, Jim’s pleased to say, has never once beaten him up for making doe eyes. 

Jim shrugs. “We don’t have to be in Colorado, but we do have to be somewhere. You got any better ideas?”

“We could go home,” Bart says, like it’s nothing. Like home is a place and not a half thought-out construct somebody else wrote for them.

“Aren’t you from out East?” Jim says. “Well, I guess it’d be something new.”

Bart looks at him like he’s being an idiot on purpose. “Nah, I’m from Asheville. We been there. _Your_ home.” It occurs to Jim that perhaps Bart doesn’t know that Jim left his hometown behind long ago and hasn’t had much cause to remember it since then. He’s much more suited to the movies than to real life, anyway. Much easier to be a real character.

“That’s all backstory. Nothing back there but shattered parental dreams and a hell of a lot of bird shot,” Jim says then, wryly, “The movie started when it did for a reason.” 

Bart laughs a little, showing his teeth, and the wind whistles by on the mountain grass. “Movie’s over, champ. We rode off into the sunset. There’s no Hollywood for us to go back to.” And he leans one leg over so it’s resting right on Jim’s, a column of warmth between them.

“Well, there’s no hometown for us to go back to, either,” Jim says. “I might’ve been born in Waco, but I sure as hell don’t want to go back. I haven’t talked to anyone from that town in twenty years and I don’t plan on starting now.”

“All right, all right,” Bart says, raising his hands in surrender. “Let’s head up north, check out Montana. We can stop in Chicago on the way.”

“It’ll be interesting being in a big city again,” Jim nods. “Although I hear they haven’t invented the tourist destination yet.”

“We’ll just have to do it for them.” Bart inches slightly closer to Jim, close enough that the night stops feeling quite so cool. 

Jim coughs. He starts to stand up, maybe get the bedrolls, and Bart grabs onto his wrist before he gets up halfway. Bart’s hands are as warm as the rest of him, and Jim knows that if he turned back he’d see Bart grinning with a terrible edge of hope under it. “Think you’re forgetting it’s not the twenty-second century, partner.” 

“Aw, come on,” Bart says, arm outstretched. “Everyone knows cowboys are gay as hell anyway.”

“Maybe I need a little more time.” Jim doesn’t pull his arm away but. “Wasn’t too long ago that they repealed the Hays code,” he says. “I need a little bit more time.”

“Then you can have it.” Bart lets Jim go, and it’s a relief and a discomfort all at once. 

“Chicago sounds good,” Jim offers. “Might be nice to go some place where the hicks are all from Europe.”

“We can head there in the morning,” Bart promises. They pull out the bed rolls, stick ‘em near the fire. Jim pretends it’s not on purpose when he rolls out his sleeping bag a little closer to Bart’s, but he knows he’s not fooling anyone.

* * *

It’s more than a handful of days’ ride to Chicago, especially because they have to keep stopping in tiny towns to earn enough cash to buy provisions. At some point, Jim took over finding them work. God gave him the gift of figuring out character templates real young, so it’s never too hard to find a cluster of background characters who need something done and can’t find a man unimportant enough to do it. 

“This’ll be a hell of a lot easier once they invent betting on pool,” Bart says one day. “I could crush being a pool shark.” They’re escorting a caravan of horse-drawn wheelbarrows to the nearest market town. The roads can barely be called roads in these parts, alternating mud and rocks. 

“Because everyone will underestimate you?” Jim spurs his horse a little so they’re walking side-by-side.

Bart grins, and there’s delight in his voice. “Because everyone will underestimate me! Yes, indeedy.”

Their horses clop a little farther, although it’s really more of a squishing-cracking sound. Jim’s been used to silence for a long, long while, and it’s alway easier to weather with company. There’s been no sign of Indians in the area, either, which means their pay should come danger-free. Or low-danger, at least. They don’t really make safe work out in these parts. 

“You know,” says Bart, “It's heartening how willing these farmers are to allow me to guard their hard-earned produce.”

“I wouldn’t get your hopes up,” Jim says. “I heard ‘em talking earlier about how you were black enough to scare an Indian off, on account of your race’s noted savagery.”

“Change is coming in this country.” Bart takes one hand off the reins to wag his finger at Jim. “It may take a couple hundred years, but it’s coming.”

Jim shakes his head but he’s smiling. “We’re going to talk about how you know the future so well sometime.”

“Aw, the future and I are old friends. We’re familiar.” Bart spurs his horse on towards the front of the cart train, and Jim lopes his horse on down behind. “Like — like how you and the common people are. You know about ‘em.” 

It’s a fair point, and Jim turns it over in his head while they ride. Just a few hours ‘til they reach the next city, take their pay, and head on further to the big city. 

Sure enough, the job goes safely. No shots fired, no blood nor crops spilled. Jim knows how to pick ‘em, if he may say so himself. It’s just a few more days until they reach Chicago, and they’ve already started seeing signs of civilization.

They’re out on the open road when they first see the creeping sprawl of the big city on the horizon. A factory, or maybe several, is belching coal smoke into the air. The smell has been drifting across the plains for a while, but for the first time Jim can see where it comes from. 

“Looks like an interesting place,” Jim says. He rolls his neck to the side, a sudden pinch of tension growing where none was previously. 

“Looks like something different,” Bart says. “And a good place to get a hot bath.”

“Well, that sure is a draw. I _stink_.” Jim throws a glance over at Bart. “And so do you. Besides, we’ve come too far to go back.”

“You don’t need to convince me,” Bart says. “Who knows, maybe city living will suit you.”

“Don’t know ‘bout that,” Jims says, but he doesn’t move to slow his horse’s walk. “Few too many folks preaching teetotaling for my tastes.”

That gets Bart to turn his head. “Really? You’ve hardly been drinking at all while we’ve been on the road.”

And — huh. “You got me there,” Jim admits. “Better things to spend my money on.”

“Better ways to spend your time?” Bart asks, sly and with a sickening amount of confidence. The _with me_ goes unsaid, but Jim knows it’s meant to be there. He finds it almost charming, unfortunately. 

“You sure think a lot of yourself.” Jim’s willing to let the conversation end there, another scrap of banter to tide off the boredom, but Bart’s got that look in his eye that means he’s coming up with a ridiculous plan. “Before you say whatever you’re going to say, think about how we are very different people.”

“You don’t know what I’m going to say! I was just thinking that we should get you a lady. Just for a night, even.”

That does catch Jim off-guard. “No thank you,” he drawls. “I’m perfectly happy as I am. Never having slept with a prostitute.”

“Don’t get down on yourself! You could pull some unmarried sweet thing,” Bart says. “We’ll just pop in, see the sights.”

“I think I’ll like it better on the road,” Jim says. It comes out a little more honest than he meant it to, maybe a little sadder. Drifting around is no way man is supposed to live, and it’s the only thing Jim’s ever known. 

“Always something new to see?” There’s a thread of disingenuousness to the question, like Bart already knows the answer he’s expecting to get.

“Mostly I like that it’s all the same old,” Jim says. 

Bart just makes a little “mmhmm” sound in reply, and the conversation dissolves into the darkening air tumbling over the plains. 

A man driving some oxen and a wagon comes up the road, and Bart looks to Jim like he does every time someone serendipitously appears. Jim squints at the man, at the empty holster at his side and the way his heavy coat has seen better days. Subtle, he shakes his head. If this fella had a story to be told, it happened long ago. 

The farmer raises a hand to Jim and glares at Bart, but he doesn’t spit in the road in front of them. They both pass each other in silence. 

As they inch closer to the city, more people come out to see them, a handful then a dozen, a shifting morass looking to see the first black sheriff. 

The horses clop a few hours longer and a handful of miles closer, and Jim realizes with an unsteady breath that the feeling in the pit of his stomach is dread. There are people all around him. The city is looming on the horizon. And it’s not where he’s from, it’s hundreds of miles from where he’s from but — he’s spent years making himself into someone from Hollywood, and he’s not sure who he’d be without it. All these people, they’re all fine, but Jim wouldn’t know who to be without the buzzing in his skull telling him to find a narrative arc. He slows his horse, then stops it completely. “Bart?” He says. “Let’s go somewhere else.”

Bart wheels his horse around. “I thought you’d never ask,” he says, grin wide and shining. “Let’s blow this popsicle stand.”

Jim has to say, Chicago seems much prettier in rear view.

* * *

They’re back on the frontier, back to drifting like a dandelion seed on the breeze, and Jim feels like a new man. Or, at least, good enough to have a conversation with Bart without waiting ‘til the next town they get to with a saloon. Jim wasn’t raised to talk about his feelings, but it’s a skill he’s forced himself to learn over time. 

“Y’know,” Jim starts off with. “Home.”

Bart coughs and it sounds suspiciously like a laugh. “Go on,” he says. 

“It’s supposed to be a place, but it isn’t. It was you the whole time.”

And there’s silence from Bart for a long, long time. Jim’s starting to wonder if he said anything out loud at all when Bart clears his throat. “I’m not from anywhere,” he says, all dramatic like he’s making a speech. “Not right now, at least. I’d like it if I could have a home with you.”

“Oh,” says Jim, because he doesn’t know what else he could say. His heart’s doing a little thump-thump in his chest, very pleasant. “Good.”

There’s no villain defeated, no injustice corrected, but it feels like the sun on his back anyway. And it’s about three p.m. out so there’s no ride into the sunset, but Jim doesn’t mind that either. This isn’t an ending, it’s a stop on the journey.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! i love love comments + kudos so please leave me them?


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